Once upon a time us Brits would settle for a cup of instant granules, burnt with boiling water and brought down to barely warm with some ice cold milk. It’s 2017 and those days are long gone. Artisanal coffee shops serving coffees from across the globe, with flavours advanced with bean specific technique, have raised the game so exponentially that having a coffee machine in your home is now no longer a fanciful and frivolous option. The availability of both knowledge and product on most high streets has only served to make us ever more discerning. With this in mind, here are 5 IDEAL reasons to treat yourself to a coffee machine.
TIME AND LABOUR EFFICIENT
The modern cup of Joe and the modern, average Joe have a lot in common. Life moves fast and having a coffee machine at home saves time and a trip to the high street for your coffee fix. Mornings are so much easier with a coffee machine. Depending on your choice of machine, having a cup of the finest coffee can be as simple as putting a pod in the machine and letting it do all the work.
YOU’LL SUDDENLY NOTICE YOU HAVE MORE FRIENDS
‘Hey, want to come back for coffee?’. This cliched invite will suddenly carry a lot more weight than before. Where once you had to deal with the shame of rejection and loneliness, now people will bite your hand off if ever invited to your house. Sure, it’ll be for your amazing coffee, but you can tell yourself it’s for your sparkling company. Everybody wins.
THE TASTE
According to some connoisseurs, to get the very best cup of coffee at home you should grind your own beans. You can do this with an integrated grinder. Just purchase some beans and the machine will grind and make the drink for you. This leads to both sensational taste and a wonderful sense of accomplishment. You can get coffee beans from your local supermarket, or buy in bulk online from companies like Honest Coffees who offer an enticing range of beans from around the globe. If grinding your own beans seems too much like hard work a capsule or pod machine offers great taste too. Each packet has been sealed tightly to lock in freshness – another winner that instant or cafetieres can’t beat.
THE VARIETIES ARE ENDLESS
If using a pod machine, you could select a different variety from a different region of the world each day. The spice of life? Coffee machines have that covered. What’s more, a bean-to-cup machine can produce a myriad of styles, from espressos and americanos to cappuccinos and beyond. Although the initial outlay seems large, in the long run you’ll save money from enjoying your coffees at home rather than being in expensive coffee shops daily.
BECOME A COFFEE CONNOISSEUR
Once you have your machine of choice in place, you can focus on the really important stuff – finding the right bean or ready-ground. The fun begins when being duty bound to sample as many as possible to find your flavour. Experience leads to knowledge, and knowing your stuff about coffee is social currency in the modern age. Prepare to lord it over your peers.
So now you’ve probably decided that you want to become your own barista. But where should you go to buy the right coffee machine for you? For espresso makers we’d recommend this site which features some great buying guides and detailed reviews of different machines to use at home. For a reasonable deal on machines that make a variety of different coffees, your best bet is probably Amazon.com which sell a great variety of combination coffee makers.